Teaching German

Travel

Germany warns against travel to Turkey

In response to jailings of journalists and human rights activists the Foreign Ministry is now warning German citizens that they face risks if they go to Turkey.

Germany's foreign minister interrupted his vacation on the North Sea to return to Berlin to deliver the most strongly worded statement yet against Turkey's imprisonment of German journalists and human right activists.

"We want Turkey to be a part of the West, or at least remain in its current position, but it takes two to tango," Sigmar Gabriel at a press conference in Berlin. "I cannot make out any willingness on the part of the current Turkish government to follow this path with us. For that reason Germany is forced to reorient its Turkey policy. The first consequences will be new travel advisories for German citizens in Turkey."

Gabriel said that Germans traveling to Turkey were incurring "risks," and the ministry website recommended Germans should exercise "heightened caution" when visiting Turkey.